2.

1 Introduction to Ethics

Introduction

Forming communities allows us to enjoy better lives than if we lived in isolation. Communities
prohibit certain actions and make other actions obligatory. Those who do not conform to these
prohibitions and obligations can be punished.
Responsible community members take the needs and desires of other people into account when
they make decisions. They recognize that virtually everybody shares the “core values” of life,
happiness, and the ability to accomplish goals.
In this chapter, we describe the difference between morality and ethics, discuss a variety of
ethical theories, evaluate their pros and cons, and show how to use the more viable ethical
theories to solve moral problems.

Defining Terms
A society is an association of people organized under a system of rules designed to advance the
good of its members over time.
Every society has rules of conduct describing what people ought and ought not to do in various
situations. We call these rules morality.
Ethics is the philosophical study of morality, a rational examination into people’s moral beliefs
and behavior.
 Sou
rce: Ethics for the Information Age (p. 51), by M. Quiin, Addison-Wesley. Copyright © 2015, 2013, 2011 by
Pearson Education, Inc.,

Society is like a town full of people driving cars. Morality is the road network within the town.
People ought to keep their cars on the roads. Those who choose to “do ethics” are in balloons
floating above the town.
From this perspective, an observer can evaluate individual roads (particular moral guidelines) as
well as the quality of the entire road network (moral system).
The observer can also judge whether individual drivers are staying on the roads (acting morally)
or taking shortcuts (acting immorally).
Finally, the observer can propose and evaluate various ways of constructing road networks
(alternative moral systems).
While there may, in fact, be a definite answer regarding the best way to construct and operate a
road network, it may be difficult for the observers to identify and agree upon this answer,
because each observer has a different viewpoint.
Overview of Ethical Theories
The formal study of ethics goes back at least 2,400 years, to the Greek philosopher Socrates.
Socrates did not put any of his philosophy in writing, but his student Plato did.
In Plato’s dialogue called the Crito, imprisoned Socrates uses ethical reasoning to explain why
he ought to face an unjust death penalty rather than take advantage of an opportunity to flee into
exile with his family.
There are many proposed ethical theories and we're going to examine some of them. In this
chapter, we consider nine ethical theories - nine frameworks for moral decision making.
The workable theories will be those that make it possible for a person to present a persuasive,
logical argument to a diverse audience of skeptical, yet open-minded people.

Nine Ethical Theories to be discussed in this lesson:

1. Subject Relativism
2. Cultural Relativism
3. Divine Command Theory
4. Ethical Egoism
5. Kantianism
6. Act Utilitarianism
7. Rule Utilitarianism
8. Social Contract Theory
9. Virtue Ethics

2.2 Subject Relativism

Subject Relativism

Relativism is the theory that there are no universal moral norms of right and wrong.
According to this theory, different individuals or groups of people can have completely opposite
views of a moral problem, and both can be right.
Two particular kinds of relativism

1. subjective relativism
2. cultural relativism

Subjective relativism holds that each person decides right and wrong for himself or herself.
This notion is captured in the popular expression, “What’s right for you may not be right for
me.”
*Holds the idea that each individual person decides what is right or wrong for themselves

The Case for Subjective Relativism

1. Well-meaning and intelligent people may have opposite opinions about moral issues

 For example, the issue of legal abortion in the United States. There are a number of
rational people on each side of the issue. Subjective realists would base their own
opinion upon their morality of what they see to be right or wrong not what society or
the government claim to be fair and true. Instead, each of us creates his or her own
morality.

2. Ethical debates are disagreeable and pointless.

 Going back to the example of abortion, the debate in the United States has been going
on for more than 40 years. An agreement about whether abortion is right or wrong
may never be reached.

The Case against Subjective Relativism

1. With subjective relativism, the line between doing what you think is right and doing
what you want to do is not sharply drawn.
2. By allowing each person to decide right and wrong for himself or herself, subjective
relativism makes no moral distinction between the actions of different people.
o The fact is that some people have caused millions to suffer, while others
have led lives of great service to humanity.
o a statement of the form, “I can decide what’s right for me, as long as my
actions don’t hurt anyone else,” is inconsistent with subjective relativism.
 3. Subjective relativism and tolerance are two different things.
o Some people may be attracted to relativism because they believe in
tolerance (open-minded).
o It allows individuals in a pluralistic society like the United States to live in
harmony.
o However, tolerance is not the same thing as subjective relativism.
Subjective relativism holds that individuals decide for themselves what is
right and what is wrong.
o If you are a tolerant person, is it okay with you if some people decide they
want to be intolerant? What if a person decides that he will only deal
fairly with people of his own racial group?
o Relativism is based on the idea that there are no universal moral norms, so
a blanket statement about the need for tolerance is incompatible with
subjective relativism.
4. We should not give legitimacy to an ethical theory that allows people to make
decisions based on something other than reason.
o If individuals decide for themselves what is right and what is wrong, they
can reach their conclusions by any means they see fit. They may choose to
base their decisions on something other than logic and reason, such as the
rolling of dice or the turning of tarot cards. This path is contrary to using
logic and reason.

*If your goal is to persuade others that your solutions to actual moral problems are correct,
adopting subjective relativism is self-defeating because it is based on the idea that each person
decides for himself or herself what is right and what is wrong.
*According to subjective relativism, nobody’s conclusions are any more valid that anyone else’s,
no matter how these conclusions are drawn. Therefore, we reject subjective relativism as a
workable ethical theory.

2.3 Cultural Relativism

Cultural Relativism

Cultural relativism is the ethical theory that the meaning of “right” and “wrong” rests with a
society’s actual moral guidelines.

 A particular action may be right in one society at one time and wrong in other society
or at another time
o Ex. (driving with a friend and killing a pedestrian)
  (90% in Norway, 10% in Serbia, 50% in Mexico will not
testify)

Case for Cultural Relativism

1. Different social contexts demand different moral guidelines.
o It’s unrealistic to assume that the same set of moral guidelines can be
expected to work for all human societies in every part of the world for all
ages.
2. It is arrogant for one society to judge another.
o We may have more technology than people in other societies, but we are
no more intelligent than they are. It is arrogant for a person living in
twenty-first-century Italy to judge the actions of another person who lived
in the Inca Empire in the fifteenth century.

The Case against Cultural Relativism

1. Just because two societies do have different views about right and wrong doesn’t
imply that they ought to have different views.
2. Cultural relativism does not explain how an individual determines the moral
guidelines of a particular society.
3. Cultural relativism does not explain how to determine right from wrong when there
are no cultural norms.
4. Cultural relativism does not do a good job of characterizing actions when moral
guidelines evolve.
5. Cultural relativism provides no framework for reconciliation between cultures in
conflict.
6. The existence of many acceptable cultural practices does not imply that any cultural
practice would be acceptable.
7. Societies do, in fact, share certain core values.
8. Cultural relativism is only indirectly based on reason.

Cultural relativism has significant weaknesses as a tool for ethical persuasion. According to
cultural relativism, the ethical evaluation of a moral problem made by a person in one society
may be meaningless when applied to the same moral problem in another society. Cultural
relativism suggests there are no universal moral guidelines. It gives tradition more weight in
ethical evaluations than facts and reason. For these reasons, cultural relativism is not a powerful
tool for constructing ethical evaluations persuasive to a diverse audience, and we consider it no
further.

2.4 Ethical Egoism

Ethical Egoism

is the philosophy that each person should focus exclusively on his or her self-interest.

 In other words, according to ethical egoism, the morally right action for a person to
take in a particular situation is the action that will provide that person with the
maximum long-term benefit.
 Ethical egoism does not prohibit acting to help someone else but assisting another is
the right thing to do if and only if it is in the helper’s own long-term best interest.

The Case for Ethical Egoism

1. Ethical egoism is a practical moral philosophy.
2. It’s better to let other people take care of themselves.
3. The community can benefit when individuals put their well-being first.
4. Other moral principles are rooted in the principle of self-interest.

The Case against Ethical Egoism

1. An easy moral philosophy may not be the best moral philosophy.
2. We do, in fact, know a lot about what is good for someone else.
3. A self-interested focus can lead to blatantly immoral behavior.
4. Other moral principles are superior to the principle of self-interest.
5. People who take the good of others into account live happier lives.
Ethical egoism does not respect the ethical point of view: it does not recognize that in order to
reap the benefits of living in a community, individuals must consider the good of other
community members. For this reason, we reject ethical egoism as a workable ethical theory.

Kantianism

Kantianism is the name given to the ethical theory of the German philosopher Immanuel
Kant (1724–1804).
Kant believed that people’s actions ought to be guided by moral laws and that these moral laws
were universal. He held that in order to apply to all rational beings, any supreme principle of
morality must itself be based on reason.
Many of the moral laws Kant describes can also be found in the Bible, Kant’s methodology
allows these laws to be derived through a reasoning process.
A Kantian is able to go beyond simply stating that an action is right or wrong by citing chapter
and verse; a Kantian can explain why it is right or wrong.
Kant viewed morality not in terms of hypothetical imperatives, but through what he called
categorical imperatives.

Categorical Imperative (First Formulation)

Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should
become a universal law.
*universal law - something that must be done in similar situations
*autonomous - acting in accordance with one's moral duty rather than one's desires.
This version, known as the formula of the universal law, tells us to “act only on that maxim that
you could consistently will to be a universal law.” The maxim of our action is the subjective
principle that determines our will. We act for our own reasons. Different intentions might lead to
similar actions. When I want to make myself a bit more presentable, I shave and shower. Others
might perform the same action for a different reason. We can identify different maxims in terms
of these different reasons or intentions. For Kant, intentions matter. He evaluates the moral status
of actions not according to the action itself or according to its consequences, but according to the
maxim of the action. The moral status of an action is determined by the actor’s intentions or
reasons for acting.
According to the formula of the universal law, what makes an action morally acceptable is that
its maxim is universalizable. That is, morally permissible action is action that is motivated by an
intention that we can rationally will that others act on similarly. A morally prohibited action is
just one where we can’t rationally will that our maxim is universally followed. Deception and
threat are both paradigm cases of acting wrongly according to Kant. In both cases, our maxim
involves violating the autonomy of another rational being and this is something that we, as
rationally autonomous beings ourselves, could not consistently will to be a universal law.
According to Kant, there is a contradiction involved in a rational autonomous being willing that
autonomy be universally coercively or deceptively violated. This would involve a rational
autonomous being willing the violation of its own rational autonomy. Acting out of moral duty is
a matter of acting only on maxims that we can rationally will others act on as well. The person of
good will recognizes the humanity of others by not making any special exception for herself
even when her interests or inclination would be served by doing so.
*So as a Kantian, before I act, I would ask myself, what's the general rule that stands behind the
particular action I'm considering?

Categorical Imperative (Second Formulation)

Act so that you always treat both yourself and other people as ends in themselves, and never only
as a means to an end.

*It is wrong for one person to “use” another. Instead, every interaction with other people must
respect them as rational beings.
a means to an end - something that you do because it will help you to achieve something else
ends in themselves - A purpose or goal desired for its own sake (rather than to attain something
else).
The second formulation, tells us to treat individuals as ends in themselves. That is just to say that
persons should be treated as beings that have intrinsic value. To say that persons have intrinsic
value is to say that they have value independent of their usefulness for this or that purpose.
The second formulation of CI does not say that you can never use a person for your own
purposes. But it tells us we should never use a person merely as a means to your own ends. What
is the difference? We treat people as a means to our own ends in ways that are not morally
problematic quite often.
When I go to the post office, I treat the clerk as a means to my end of sending a letter. But I do
not treat that person merely as a means to an end. I pursue my end of sending a letter through my
interaction with the clerk only with the understanding that the clerk is acting autonomously in
serving me. My interaction with the clerk is morally acceptable so long as the clerk is serving me
voluntarily, or acting autonomously for his own reasons.
By contrast, we use people merely as a means to an end if we force them to do our will, or if we
deceive them into doing our will. Threat and deception are paradigm violations of the
Categorical Imperative. In threatening or deceiving another person, we disrupt his or her
autonomy and his or her will. This is what the Categorical Imperative forbids. Respecting
persons requires refraining from violating their autonomy.

The Case for Kantianism

1. The Categorical Imperative aligns with the common moral concern, “What if
everybody acted that way?”
o According to Kantianism, it is wrong for you to act in a particular way if
you cannot wish everyone in a similar circumstance to do the same thing.
2. Kantianism produces universal moral guidelines.
o Kantianism aligns with the intuition of many people that the same
morality ought to apply to all people for all of history. These guidelines
allow us to make clear moral judgments.
o For example, one such judgment might be the following: “Sacrificing
living human beings to satisfy the gods is wrong.” It is wrong in Europe in
the
the twenty-first century, and it was wrong in South America in the
fifteenth century.
3. All persons are treated as moral equals.
o A popular belief is that “all people are created equal.” Because it holds
that people in similar situations should be treated in similar ways,
Kantianism provides an ethical framework to combat discrimination.

The Case against Kantianism

1. Sometimes no single rule fully characterizes an action.
2. Sometimes there is no way to resolve a conflict between rules.
3. Kantianism allows no exceptions to perfect duties.

*While these objections point out weaknesses with Kantianism, the theory does support moral
decision making based on logical reasoning from facts and commonly held values. It is culture
neutral and treats all humans as equals. Hence it meets our criteria for a workable ethical theory
and we will use it as a way of evaluating moral problems.

Evaluating a Scenario Using Kantianism

Scenario
Carla is a single mother who is working hard to complete her college education while taking care of
her daughter. Carla has a full-time job and is taking two evening courses per semester. If she can pass
both courses this semester, she will graduate. She knows her child will benefit if she can spend more
time at home. One of her required classes is modern European history. In addition to the midterm and
final examinations, the professor assigns four lengthy reports, which is far more than the usual
amount of work required for a single class. Students must submit all four reports in order to pass the
class. Carla earns an A on each of her first three reports. At the end of the term, she is required to put
in a lot of overtime where she works. She simply does not have time to research and write the final
report. Carla uses the web to identify a company that sells term papers. She purchases a report from
the company and submits it as her own work. Was Carla’s action morally justifiable?

Analysis

Many times it is easier to use the second formulation of the Categorical Imperative to analyze a
moral problem from a Kantian point of view, so that’s
where we begin. By submitting another person’s work as her own, Carla treated her professor as
a means to an end. She deceived her professor with the goal of getting credit for someone else’s
work. It was wrong for Carla to treat the professor as a grade-generating machine rather than a
rational agent with whom she could have communicated her unusual circumstances. We can also
look at this problem using the first formulation of the
Categorical Imperative. Carla wants to be able to get credit for turning in a report she has
purchased. A proposed moral rule might be, “I may claim academic credit for a report written by
someone else.” However, if everyone followed this rule, reports would cease to be credible
indicators of the students’ knowledge, and professors would not give academic credit for reports.
Her proposed moral rule is self-defeating. Therefore, it is wrong for Carla to purchase a report
and turn it in as her own work.

Commentary

Note that the Kantian analysis of the moral problem focuses on the will behind the action. It asks
the question, “What was Carla trying to do when she submitted under her own name a term paper
written by someone else?” The analysis ignores extenuating circumstances that non-Kantians
may cite to justify her action.

Utilitarianism

The English philosophers Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806–1873)
proposed a theory that is in sharp contrast to Kantianism.
According to Bentham and Mill, an action is good if its benefits exceed its harms, and action is
bad if its harms exceed its benefits.
Their ethical theory, called utilitarianism, is based upon the principle of utility, also called
the Greatest Happiness Principle.

Principle of Utility
Utility is the tendency of an object to produce happiness or prevent unhappiness for an
individual or a community.
Depending on the circumstances, you may think of “happiness” as an advantage, benefit, good,
or pleasure, and “unhappiness” as a disadvantage, cost, evil, or pain.
Principle of Utility (Greatest Happiness Principle)
An action is right (or wrong) to the extent that it increases (or decreases) the total happiness of
the affected parties.
*The moral action is the one that produces the maximum increase in happiness. (If every
possible action results in a decrease in happiness, then the moral action is the one that minimizes
the decrease in happiness.)
Note that the morality of an action has nothing to do with the attitude behind the action. Bentham
writes, “There is no such thing as any sort of motive that is in itself a bad one. If [motives] are
good or bad, it is only on account of their effects”. We call utilitarianism a consequentialist
theory because the focus is on the consequences of an action.
There are two formulations of utilitarianism: act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism.

Act utilitarianism
Act utilitarianism is the ethical theory that an action is good if its net effect (overall affected
beings) is to produce more happiness than unhappiness.
We are required to promote those acts which will result in the greatest good for the greatest
number of people. The consequences of the act of giving money to charity would be considered
right in act-utilitarianism, because the money increases the happiness of many people, rather than
just yourself.

Case for Act Utilitarianism

 Focuses on happiness
 Down-to-earth (practical)
 Comprehensive
 Workable ethical theory

Case Against Act Utilitarianism

 Unclear whom to include in calculations
 o In the highway example children in one side might find it difficult to cross
the highway
 Too much work
 Susceptible to the problem of moral luck
o Ex: Sending flowers to a patient and causing an allergy for him. This cost
him much. Then your act is BAD.

Evaluating a Scenario Using Act Utilitarianism

Scenario
A state is considering replacing a curvy stretch of highway that passes along the borders of a
large city. Would building the highway be a good action?
Analysis
To perform the analysis of this problem, we must determine who is affected and the effects of the
highway construction on them. Our analysis is in terms of dollars and cents. For this reason,
we’ll use the terms “benefit” and “cost” instead of “happiness” and “unhappiness.” About 150
houses lie on or very near the proposed path of the new, straighter section of the highway. Using
its power of an eminent domain, the state can condemn these properties. It would cost the state
$20 million to provide fair compensation to the homeowners. Constructing the new highway,
which is three miles long, would cost the taxpayers of the state another $10 million. Suppose the
environmental impact of the new highway in terms of lost habitat for morally significant animal
species is valued at $1 million. Every weekday, 15,000 cars are expected to travel on this section
of highway, which is one mile shorter than the curvy highway it replaces. Assuming it costs 40
cents per mile to operate a motor vehicle, construction of the new highway will save drivers
$6,000 per weekday in operating costs. The highway has an expected operating lifetime of 25
years. Over a 25-year period, the expected total savings to drivers will be $39 million. We’ll
assume the highway project will have no positive or negative effects on any other people. Since
the overall cost of the new highway is $31 million and the benefit of the new highway is $39
million, building the highway would be a good action.
Commentary
Performing the benefit/cost (or happiness/unhappiness) calculations is crucial to the utilitarian
approach, yet it can be controversial. In our example, we translated everything into dollars and
cents. Was that reasonable? Neighborhoods are the site of many important relationships. We did
not assign a value to the harm the proposed highway would do to these neighborhoods. There is a
good chance that many of the homeowners would be angry about being forced out of their
houses, even if they were paid a fair price for their properties. How do we put a dollar value on
their emotional distress? On the other hand, we can’t add apples and oranges. Translating
everything into dollars and cents is one way to put everything into common units.
Rule Utilitarianism
Rule utilitarianism is the ethical theory that holds that we ought to adopt those moral rules that, if
followed by everyone, lead to the greatest increase in total happiness overall affected parties.
Hence a rule utilitarian applies the principle of utility to moral rules, while an act utilitarian
applies the principle of utility to individual moral actions.
The rule utilitarian is looking at the consequences of the action, while the Kantian is looking at
the will motivating the action.

Evaluating a Scenario Using Rule Utilitarianism

Scenario
A worm is a self-contained program that spreads through a computer network by taking
advantage of security holes in the computers connected to the network. In August 2003, the
Blaster worm infected many computers running the Windows 2000, Windows NT, and Windows
XP operating systems. The Blaster worm caused computers it infected to reboot every few
minutes. Soon another worm was exploiting the same security hole in Windows to
spread through the Internet. However, the purpose of the new worm, named Nachi, was
benevolent. Since Nachi took advantage of the same security hole as Blaster, it could not infect
computers that were immune to the Blaster worm. Once Nachi gained access to a computer with
the security hole, it located and destroyed copies of the Blaster worm. It also automatically
downloaded from Microsoft a patch to the operating system software that would fix the security
problem. Finally, it used the computer as a launching pad to seek out other Windows PCs with
the security hole. Was the action of the person who released the Nachi worm morally right or
wrong?

Analysis
To analyze this moral problem from a rule utilitarian point of view, we must think of an
appropriate moral rule and determine if its universal adoption would increase the happiness of
the affected parties. In this case, an appropriate moral rule might be the following: “If I can write
and release a helpful worm that improves the security of the computers it infects, I should do
so.”
What would be the benefits if everyone followed the proposed moral rule? Many people do not
keep their computers up to date with the latest patches to the operating system. They would
benefit from a worm that automatically removed their network vulnerabilities.
What harm would be caused by the universal adoption of the rule? If everyone followed this rule,
the appearance of every new harmful worm would be followed by the release of many other
worms designed to eradicate the harmful worm. Worms make networks less usable by creating a
lot of extra network traffic. For example, the Nachi worm disabled networks of Diebold ATM
machines at two financial institutions. The universal adoption of the moral rule would reduce the
usefulness of the Internet while the various “helpful” worms were circulating.
Another negative consequence would be potential harm done to computers by the supposedly
helpful worms. Even worms designed to be benevolent may contain bugs. If many people are
releasing worms, there is a good chance some of the worms may accidentally harm data or
programs on the computers they infect.
A third harmful consequence would be the extra work placed on system administrators. When
system administrators detect a new worm, it is not
immediately obvious whether the worm is harmful or beneficial. Hence the prudent response of
system administrators is to combat every new worm that attacks their computers. If the proposed
moral rule were adopted, more worms would be released, forcing system administrators to spend
more of their time-fighting worms.
In conclusion, the harms caused by the universal adoption of this moral rule appear to outweigh
the benefits. Therefore, the action of the person who
released the Nachi worm is morally wrong.

Social Contract Theory

“Morality consists in the set of rules, governing how people are to treat one another, that rational
people will agree to accept, for their mutual benefit,
on the condition that others follow those rules as well.”

Thomas Hobbes

o he argues that without rules and a means of enforcing them, people would
not bother to create anything of value, because nobody could be sure of
keeping what they created
o Instead, people would be consumed with taking what they needed and
defending themselves
against the attacks of others.
o To avoid this miserable condition, which Hobbes calls the “state of
nature,” rational people understand that cooperation is essential. However,
cooperation is possible only when people mutually agree to follow certain
guidelines. Hence moral rules are “simply the rules that are necessary if
we are to gain the benefits of social living”

Hobbes argues that everybody living in a civilized society has implicitly agreed to two things:

1. the establishment of such a set of moral rules to govern relations among citizens, and
2. a government capable of enforcing these rules. He calls this arrangement the social
contract.


o Ex: residents of Baghdad after Iraq Invasion – no social contract with the
state.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau - continued the evolution of social contract theory

 
o In an ideal society, no one is above rules that prevent society from
enacting bad rules

James Rachels’s Definition

“Morality consists in the set of rules, governing how people are to treat one another, that rational
people will agree to accept, for their mutual benefit, on the condition that others follow those
rules as well.”
Similar to Kantianism but rules are not to be universalized, but specific society should
agreed upon.

John Rawls’s Principles of Justice

 To avoid unequal distribution of wealth and power:

o Each person may claim a “fully adequate” number of basic rights and
liberties, so long as these claims are consistent with everyone else having
a claim to the same rights and liberties
o Any social and economic inequalities must

 Be associated with positions that everyone has a fair and equal opportunity to
achieve.
o Ex: People with same intelligence, talent, …etc, should have the right to
achieve the same position regardless of their social position.
 Be to the greatest benefit of the least-advantaged members of society (the difference
principle)
o Ex: differences in Taxes according to income

Case for Social Contract Theory

1. It is framed in the language of rights.
2. It explains why rational people act out of self-interest in the absence of a common
agreement.
3. It explains why under certain circumstances the government may deprive some
people of some rights.
4. It explains why under certain circumstances civil disobedience can be the morally
right decision.
Case Against Social Contract Theory
 No one signed contract
 Some actions have multiple characterizations - Ex: Don’t steal.
 Conflicting rights problem
o Ex: Abortion - the privacy right of mother, against the fetus’s right to
live.
 May unjustly treat people who cannot uphold contract
o Ex: Drug addicts – some countries put in prisons

Evaluating a Scenario Using Social Contract Theory

Scenario
Bill, the owner of a chain of DVD rental stores in a major metropolitan area, uses a computer to
keep track of the DVDs rented by each customer. Using this information, he is able to construct
profiles of the customers. For example, a customer who rents a large number of Disney titles is
likely to have children. Bill sells these profiles to mail-order companies. The customers begin
receiving many unsolicited mail-order catalogs. Some of the customers are happy to receive
these catalogs and make use of them to order products. Others are unhappy at the increase in the
amount of “junk mail” they are receiving.
Analysis
To analyze this scenario using the social contract theory, we think about the rights of the rational
agents involved. In this case, the rational agents are Bill, his customers, and the mail-order
companies. The morality of Bill’s actions revolves around the question of whether he violated
the privacy rights of his customers. If someone rents a DVD from one of Bill’s stores, both the
customer and Bill have information about the transaction. Are their rights to this information
equal? If both the customer and Bill have equal rights to this information, then you may conclude
there is nothing wrong with him selling this information to a mail-order company. On the other
hand, if customers have the right to expect transactions to be confidential, you may conclude that
Bill was wrong to sell this information without gaining the permission of the customer.

Virtue Ethics

Virtue ethics is a philosophy developed by Aristotle and other ancient Greeks. It is the quest to
understand and live a life of moral character.
This character-based approach to morality assumes that we acquire virtue through practice. By
practicing being honest, brave, just, generous, and so on, a person develops an honorable and
moral character. According to Aristotle, by honing virtuous habits, people will likely make the
right choice when faced with ethical challenges.
According to Aristotle, there are two kinds of virtues

1. intellectual virtues
2. moral virtues
o these are virtues associated with reasoning and truth.
o Moral virtues, often called virtues of character by today’s writers, are
habits or dispositions formed through the repetition of the relevant
virtuous actions

Note, then, that moral virtue is not simply a disposition to act in a particular way, it is also a
disposition to feel in a particular way. According to Aristotle, you can tell a lot about someone’s
character by observing what pleases them and what bothers them.
He wrote, “We may even go so far as to state that the man who does not enjoy performing noble
actions is not a good man at all. Nobody would call a man just who does not enjoy acting justly,
nor generous who does not enjoy generous actions, and so on.”

The Case for Virtue Ethics

 1. In many situations it makes more sense to focus on virtues than on obligations, rights,
or consequences.
2. Personal relationships can be morally relevant to decision making.
3. Virtue ethics recognizes that our moral decision-making skills develop over time.
4. There are no irresolvable moral dilemmas.
5. Virtue ethics recognizes the important role that emotions play in living a moral life.

The Case against Virtue Ethics

1. Different people may have quite different conceptions of human flourishing.
2. Virtue ethics cannot be used to guide government policy.
3. Virtue ethics undermines attempts to hold people responsible for their bad actions.

Summary of Virtue Ethics

A right action is an action that a virtuous person, acting in character, would do in the same
circumstances. A virtuous person is a person who possesses
and lives out the virtues. The virtues are those character traits human beings need in order to
flourish and be truly happy.

Making a Decision Using Virtue Ethics

Scenario
Josh is a senior majoring in computer science at a small university. All of the seniors in computer
science are friends because they have taken most of their computer science courses together.
Josh is particularly close to Matt. Josh and Matt are from the same city about 200 miles from
campus, and Matt has given Josh rides to and from home a half dozen times at the start and end
of school holidays. Notably, Matt never asked Josh to help pay for the gas on any of these trips,
and Josh never offered to do so. When it is time for seniors to choose partners for their capstone
project, no one is surprised when Josh and Matt end up on the same team. Unfortunately, Josh
and the other teammates soon rue inviting Matt onto their team. Everyone has known Matt to be
hard-working, trustworthy, and reliable, but his father just died in a car accident, and he has lost
all interest in school. To make matters worse, Matt is drinking too much. He doesn’t show up for
a lot of the team meetings, and the code he produces doesn’t meet the specifications. Josh and
the other teammates can’t persuade Matt to take the project more seriously, and since they don’t
have any real control over his behavior, they decide it’s easier simply to rewrite Matt’s part of
the system themselves. Matt does contribute his share of the PowerPoint slides, and during the
oral presentation he stands up and talks about “his” portion of the code, never mentioning that it
was all rewritten by his teammates.
Everyone in the class is supposed to send the professor an email grading the performance of their
teammates. The department prides itself on graduating students who have proven they can work
well on software development teams, and students getting poor or failing performance reviews
from all of their teammates may be forced to repeat the class. Matt comes to Josh, tells him that
he really needs to pass this class because he can’t afford to stay in college any longer, and pleads
for a good performance review.What should Josh do?

Decision
Josh must decide whether or not to disclose to the professor that Matt did not even come close to
doing his share of the team project, fully aware that a poor or failing performance evaluation
may prevent Matt from graduating. Josh is an honest person, and he has a hard time imagining
that he could tell the professor that Matt did a good job when that is far from the truth. However,
Josh is also a just person, and he feels indebted toward Matt, who has done him a lot of favors
over the past four years—particularly those free rides to and from his hometown. Josh also feels
compassion toward Matt, who lost his father. It’s bad enough to lose a parent, but because of the
sudden nature of his father’s death, Matt didn’t even have the chance to say goodbye to him. As
he ponders his dilemma, Josh begins to realize that he finds himself in this difficult spot because
at several points in the past he didn’t step up and do the right thing. He took advantage of Matt’s
generosity (and gave in to his own greedy impulses) by taking all those free rides to and from his
hometown. If he had paid his share of the gas money, he wouldn’t be feeling so obligated toward
Matt. Josh also knows he wasn’t a very good friend when he failed to talk with Matt about how
he was feeling about his father’s death and how that was affecting his performance on the senior
project. Matt’s lack of attention to his schoolwork was definitely out of character, a sign that he
was suffering a lot. Josh now understands that he and the other teammates should have had a
conversation with the professor in charge of the senior projects when it first became apparent
that Matt was not participating fully as a teammate. An early intervention could have resulted in
a completely different outcome. After reflecting on what he should do, Josh concludes he must
be truthful with the professor. However, he will not simply tell the professor that Matt’s
performance was poor. Josh decides he will also take responsibility for his role in the fiasco by
providing a full account to the professor of how his own failure to respond to the situation earlier
in the year contributed to the unsatisfactory outcome.

Comparing Workable Ethical Theories

The divine command theory, ethical egoism, Kantianism, act utilitarianism, rule utilitarianism,
social contract theory, and virtue ethics share the viewpoint that moral good and moral precepts
are objective. In other words, morality has an existence outside the human mind. For this reason,
we say these theories are examples of objectivism.
 Source: Ethics for the Information Age by M. Quiin, Addison-Wesley. Copyright © 2015, 2013, 2011 by Pearson
Education, Inc.,

What distinguishes ethical egoism, Kantianism, utilitarianism, social contract theory, and virtue
ethics from the divine command theory is the assumption that ethical decision making is a
rational process by which people can discover objective moral principles with the use of logical
reasoning based on facts and commonly held values.
Kantianism, utilitarianism, social contract theory, and virtue ethics explicitly take other people
into consideration when defining what makes an action morally correct, which sets these theories
apart from ethical egoism.
Of all the theories we have considered, we conclude that Kantianism, act utilitarianism, rule
utilitarianism, social contract theory, and virtue ethics are the most workable.
Summary: Introduction to Ethics

We live together in communities for our mutual benefit. Every society has guidelines indicating
what people are supposed to do in various circumstances. We call these
guidelines morality. Ethics, also called moral philosophy, is a rational examination of people’s
moral beliefs and behaviors.
In this chapter, we have considered a variety of ethical theories, with the purpose of identifying
those that will be of most use to us as we consider
the effects of information technology on society.
Relativistic theories are based on the idea that people invent morality. A relativist claims there
are no universal moral principles.
Subjective relativism is the theory that morality is an individual creation. Cultural relativism is
the idea that each society determines its own morality.
In contrast, objectivism is based on the idea that morality has an existence outside the human
mind. It is the responsibility of people to discover morality. An objectivist claims there are
certain universal moral principles that are true for all people, regardless of their historical or
cultural situation.
All of the other theories discussed in this chapter are based on objectivism, including the five
most practical theories that we will be using throughout the rest of the book: Kantianism, act
utilitarianism, rule utilitarianism, social contract theory, and virtue ethics.
The strengths and weaknesses of these practical theories revealed that each of them contains
valuable insight.
According to Kant, every human being is equally valuable, and every interaction with another
person should respect that person’s rationality and autonomy.
Utilitarians understand that it’s helpful to consider the consequences of an action when deciding
whether it is right or wrong.
Social contract theory focuses on the individual and collective benefits of protecting certain
human rights, such as the right to life, liberty, and property.
Virtue ethics is based on the idea that you can count on a good person to do the right thing at the
right time in the right way.
Our discussion of these theories also revealed that none of them is perfect. In practice, however,
there is no reason why you should not consider virtues and duties and rights and consequences
when making moral decisions. If analyses from all of these perspectives result in a consensus on
the right course of action, you can make the decision with confidence.

Scenario 1:
Alexis, a gifted high school student, wants to become a doctor. Because she comes from a poor
family, she will need a scholarship in order to attend college. Some of her classes require
students to do extra research projects in order to get an A. Her high school has a few older PCs,
but there are always long lines of students waiting to use them during the school day. After
school, she usually works at a part-time job to help support her family. One evening Alexis visits
the library of a private college a few miles from her family’s apartment, and she finds plenty of
unused PCs connected to the Internet. She surreptitiously looks over the shoulder of another
student to learn a valid login/password combination. Alexis returns to the library several times a
week, and by using its PCs and printers she efficiently completes the extra research projects,
graduates from high school with straight A’s, and gets a full-ride scholarship to attend a
prestigious university.
Questions:
1. Did Alexis do anything wrong?
2. Who benefited from Alexis’s course of action?
3. Who was hurt by Alexis’s course of action?
4. Did Alexis have an unfair advantage over her high school classmates?
Scenario 2:
You are the senior software engineer at a start-up company developing an exciting new product
that will allow salespeople to generate and email sales quotes and customer invoices from their
smartphones. Your company’s sales force has led a major corporation to believe your product
will be available next week.
Unfortunately, at this point, the software still contains quite a few bugs. The leader of the testing
group has reported that all of the known bugs appear to be minor, but it will take another month
of testing for his team to be confident the product contains no catastrophic errors. Because of the
fierce competition in the smartphone software industry, it is critical that your company be “first
to market.” To the best of your knowledge, a well-established company will release a similar
product in a few weeks. If its product appears first, your start-up company will probably go out
of business.
Questions:
1. Should you recommend the release of the product next week?
2. Who will benefit if the company follows your recommendation?
3. Who will be harmed if the company follows your recommendation?
4. Do you have an obligation to any group of people that may be affected by your decision?
5. What additional information, if any, would help you answer the previous questions?